Let The Wind Rise (Sky Fall, #3)(12)

CHAPTER 7


VANE


I’d really been hoping to face psycho cave-boy with at least a little bit of daylight. But the sun is long gone by the time Arella picks up hints of Aston’s trace.

I have no idea what she’s sensing. All I see is an empty beach—which looks exactly like the zillion other empty beaches we’ve been flying over for the last few hours.

She points to a dark patch among the rocks and whispers, “I feel him testing the air, getting a sense of who we are.”

“Oh, I know who you are,” a deep, accented voice calls from the darkness. “And the only reason you’re still breathing is because I’ve decided to let you. But that can change.”

A cluster of cold, scratchy drafts yanks us out of the sky and slams us against the beach in an explosion of sand. I can’t see—can’t breathe—can’t tell if I’m sinking or rising. And as the winds crush tighter, everything goes dark.

The last threads of my consciousness are about to unravel when the winds vanish, and I cough and wheeze through the lingering silt.

I force my eyes open, squinting through the falling sand to spot . . . a blond head.

Just a head.

A lot of shouting and panicking follows, along with a ton of failed attempts to thrash before I realize I’m pinned and—most important—that I didn’t see any blood.

The head is also talking to me, which I probably should’ve noticed right away. But my brain was too busy screaming, AHHHHHH—DISEMBODIED HEAD!!!

I take another look and realize the rest of Solana is buried in the sand.

The fact that I can’t move seems like a pretty good sign that I’m in the same boat.

I’m trying to be glad that at least I don’t feel any new injuries—or any extra pain shooting through my bad elbow—when I realize we’re stuck in the wet, squishy sand. The kind of sand you only get when you’re on the part of the beach where the waves come crashing down.

Almost on cue, a freezing, foamy wave slams into us, stinging my eyes and nose and filling my mouth with salt water. The sand loosens around my shoulders as the ocean retreats, but not enough to pull myself free before the next wave hits.

Then another.

And another.

Laughter rings between splashes, and I decide that as soon as I get my arms free I will blast every square inch of this beach with wind spikes until I find his smug face and—

“I think that’s enough to make it clear who’s in charge here, don’t you?” Aston’s voice asks as the waves stop and we shiver through the eerie silence. “Not that any of you seem capable of putting up much of a fight. Still, now your silly notions of superiority can flutter away with your pride.”

His voice is everywhere and nowhere, and I want to turn my head to follow it, or at least figure out how he managed to stop the ocean. But my muscles will only let me twist so far. All I catch is a glimpse of Arella’s head sticking out of the sand on my other side, rocking the drowned-rat look.

“Well, if it isn’t the jilted princess, the questionable mother—who reeks of Maelstrom, by the way—and the heartbroken loverboy,” Aston’s voice calls from his cave. “I figured I’d be hearing from at least some of you after all the turbulence I’ve picked up—though I can’t say I expected this particular combination.”

He hisses a word I can’t understand and a sickly Easterly crawls under my skin, its icy needles prickling all the way to my core.

“Still clinging to your side of the bond, I see,” he says. “Too bad it won’t matter. Shattered bonds rarely linger. Especially when faced with so much temptation.”

He hisses another word and the sand explodes again, sending me tumbling across the beach. When the world stops spinning, I notice I’m tangled up in something warm.

“Sorry,” Solana mumbles, sliding out from underneath me.

I try really really really hard not to notice whether the water turned her dress see-through.

Aston laughs from the shadows, and I call a Westerly to my side, ready to get started on my attack-the-crap-out-of-this-beach plan.

But then I remember the reason I dragged us here in the first place.

“We need your help,” I call toward his cave.

“Yes, I can see that. This is the rescue party, right? Funny, I thought it would be bigger. Having a little trouble controlling your army, are we, Your Highness?”

“Yeah. The Gales are too busy learning to destroy the wind,” I snap back, finally getting his attention.

A cloaked figure steps out of the shadows, like he’s following the Shady-Dude-Dress-Code. “You’re teaching them the power of pain?”

“I’m not teaching them anything.” I wrap my Westerly around me as a shield and struggle to stand. “Os is the one behind it, and when I tried to stop him, he tied me to a tree. He thinks the only way to beat Raiden is to fight like him.”

Aston’s laugh is slow and bitter. “Os is right. But he’s going to ruin himself.”

“He knows,” I agree. “He doesn’t seem to care.”

“And what about you?” Aston asks as he crosses the beach to join us. His feet barely leave marks in the sand. “If you see so little value in the power, why beg me for assistance?”